Going Up Into Glory
by Cassima
Summary: After the rest of the gundam pilots are dead, Heero thinks. 5x2; COMPLETE.


Title: Going Up Into Glory  
  
Author: Cassima  
  
Disclaimer: 'Tain't mine, girls 'n' boys, though I'd let y'all borrow 'em if they were. If I owned Tetris, I'd be richer than I have any right to be. Probably older, too.  
  
Summary: After the rest of the Gundam pilots have died, Heero remembers.  
  
Rating: R  
  
Warnings: 2x5 yaoi, death, strong language.  
  
Author's note: When I was a senior in High School, I had to read "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". This story has absolutely nothing to do with that. However, I was intrigued by the idea of an untrustworthy narrator. With that said, keep in mind that Heero does not know everything that is going on. When he tries to explain things, he is extrapolating from his own knowledge--and perhaps falsely. Maybe he knows what's going on, maybe he doesn't. His word is not the be-all-end-all--though maybe it is.  
  
*****  
  
Neither you, Simon, nor the fifty thousand,  
Nor the Romans, nor the Jews,  
Mor Judas, nor the Twelve,  
Nor the Priests, nor the Scribes,  
Nor doomed Jerusalem herself  
Understand what power is  
Understand what glory is  
Understand at all ... understand at all.  
  
--"Poor Jerusalem", _Jesus Christ Superstar_  
  
*****  
  
going up into glory  
going up to meet my lord  
i'm going up into glory  
going up to meet my lord  
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
It happened a few years ago, around After Colony 204. By "it", I mean *it*, not It. I must make the distinction, so you all know. The night was cold and windy, but that only served to sharpen the stars in the sky. Stars are the judges, you know. Who are they to judge us? They do nothing but sit, watching and winking at the cosmic joke of it all. As if they are so wise.  
  
Duo and Wufei, they said, were redeemed. In the end, they had created enough light to offset the darkness they uncaringly wrought during the war against Oz. Odd, how those two--the darkest of us all, consumed by their past and what they had done during the war--how odd it is that they, of all of us, should be so fully redeemed. Duo, so outwardly cheerful and vibrant, always had that edge of manic hysteria lurking in his eyes, just beyond the edge of his patience. My masochistic streak loved to poke at it, wanting to see him explode in full Shinigami mode to punish me. No matter how much I rankled him, however, that righteous fire and danger was always just a hairsbreadth out of my reach. Wufei was exactly the opposite; his calm was too thin a veneer to hide the restless anger that surged through him, ready to snap forth violently at the slightest provocation. By the time they were gone, they'd found their peace.  
  
Quatre and Trowa, however, still work on their penance. As nice as they were, as kind as they were, they never understood. I don't think I even understand, and I was privy to the information in a way they never were. In a way I never revealed.  
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
I do not know why I still live, if that is what this existence can be called, while the others sleep the eternal sleep of the peaceful, but here I am. The world has become a rather abstract thing as of late; I am not sure where I fit, nor how I fit, or if I even fit at all. Yet, here I am, and so I must fit somehow. If I no longer belonged on this earthly plane, I would hardly continue my walk among these mere, petty mortals. I suppose I must be mortal myself, but since I have still to experience a death of my own, the uncertainty clings to me. Perhaps I am a god of sorts. Consider all the things I've done--and still I live.  
  
These must seem the mutterings of a madman; indeed, I believe I, in all probability, hold more than a touch of the madness within me. I have always been slightly off-balance, though, most likely triggered during my days as a soldier, when the war was my life. I was hardly an oddity--one had to be insane during the war, I think, in order to survive with one's mind intact. I know we all had our moments: Quatre blew things up, Trowa played with large, ferocious cats, Duo pretended he was a God, Wufei challenged random Oz officers to sword duels. With a real sword. I do not understand the attraction of a sword. I would rather have a gun. Even now, off-duty, I carry a gun with me: the same automatic I carried when I was Gundam Pilot 01, master of Wing Zero. I know I will never have to use it, and that it only makes me tense and paranoid, but I always make sure to carry it somewhere on my person.  
  
Duo and Wufei's salvation was covered in sin--but I get ahead of myself. You must pardon my seemingly careless ways; my mind often feels addled these days, surrounded by a mist that is neither in the past nor the present. I believe it may be based in the future, though only time will tell.  
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
The night *it* happened, as I said, was cold and windy. Wufei was seated in his customary armchair, seemingly absorbed in a leftover psychology textbook from our schooling days. The book itself was rather dull, even by my standards, but Wufei seemed intent on wading through the thick material. I did not know it at the time, but he was using it to ignore the rest of the world--tactics, as he always said. Survival is all about strategies and tactics.  
  
It was a classic debate between him and Duo, going on about luck and other such Duo-esque nonsense. Wufei did not believe in luck. Had he known what was to come--would he have changed his mind? I am unsure. Wufei was a master of ignoring the obvious. With all that has happened to him, I believe it must be one of his survival strategies, one he uses to defend against the slings and arrows of the world.  
  
"Slings and arrows": that was something Hamlet said in his tirade against life. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them." Despite what I would have told Duo, if he were still alive, or what I would claim to the rest of the world, I have only the faintest idea of what that passage means. Shakespeare was far from my best subject. From what I understand, however, Hamlet's "To Be or Not To Be" speech contemplated the benefits and disadvantages of suicide. How fitting; I believe that, before *it* happened, the idea of suicide lurked constantly in the back of Wufei's mind, always there presenting itself as an option. None of the rest of us ever considered such an avenue as self destruction after the end of the war--at least, not to my knowledge. And my knowledge is very much limited.  
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
The night *it* happened, Wufei was reading. Duo was reading as well, amazingly enough; he had a science fiction novel tucked into his hand from his spot curled up on the couch. I was surprised at his ability to sit still long enough to become engrossed in it.  
  
I was seated at my laptop at the corner table, disguising a game of Tetris with some research I had completed for a Preventor's mission. The five of us were sharing a house, both for moral support and the sake of sanity. For these same reasons did we all have separate bedrooms--well, that and the fact that it would have left one of us alone. And, honestly, I believed it most likely to have been Wufei. His tolerance of Duo was limited--or at least it always seemed to be. Quatre and Trowa always roomed together when necessary, most likely due to their love of music and tacit agreement about most everything. This agreement, I must tell you, drove me a bit batty at times. I am sure Duo must have thought me quite mad--much like you must, though my ramblings were simpler then. Different. Internal, for one thing.  
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
They were reading. I could hear Quatre and Trowa playing a duet in the designated music room, something lilting and mellow. I ignored it. I have never developed a taste for music.  
  
Quatre had furnished our house quite lavishly, as per his tastes and fortune. The room Duo, Wufei, and I were in was smaller than most, and a little cramped. It was quiet, though, and sheltered from the wind and weather. Everything was either wood or over-stuffed, even the rug. I think Duo always felt out of place in the luxury; his movement was always uncharacteristically awkward and clumsy, and he refused to let Quatre choose the decor for his own bedroom. Sometimes I forget that we were not all born into comfort; even with Odin Lowe did I find fancy cars and rich housing whenever possible. Duo always seemed to be watching his elbows and knees, nervous about striking a lamp, or vase, or doorframe with his growing body.  
  
Wufei just seemed comfortable wherever you put him, be it the slums or high society. His aristocratic features and mannerisms always looked out of place in the lower-class areas, but he was as comfortable with himself there as he ever was. That is hardly a great pronouncement, however; Wufei was never comfortable with himself.  
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
We were in the small room. Reading. Duo and Wufei sat kitty-corner to each other, each absorbed in his own material. Though a fire crackled in the fireplace, and the music Quatre and Trowa were playing drifted gently though the halls and to the room, there was a tension between my fellow ex-pilots and I. Something had gone down between them earlier, I guessed. I was not privy to the details of their earlier dilemma, but I have never cared much for eavesdropping, nor pleasant conversation. Relena hounds me constantly for the latter, and though I try, I feel as awkward as Duo must have felt in Quatre's large, expensive, lushly-decorated house. I was hardly born into small talk, and certainly not bred for chit-chat. The rude noises I utter seem to satisfy her, however, for she always leaves with a dreamy smile on her face. I fear I shall always remain all but confused in the wake of her driving presence.  
  
Finally, Wufei turned another page in his book of psycho-drivel. His face remained aimed at the page, and, from what I could see, his eyes never left the fine print. "There's a word for people like you." His voice rang full in the previous stillness of the room.  
  
I have to admit, at first I was unsure whom he might be speaking to. There had been silence between the three of us since we entered the room at a quarter after eight, and by the striking of the clock in the main hall, it was a few minutes past ten. Before I could snap out some grouchy demand for an explanation, Duo beat me to the punch. "I'm sure there are many. English has three times the words of most languages, and that's not even counting adopted bastard words from other languages. If you can only think of one, you're not trying very hard."  
  
I admit, I was slightly put off by this speech of Duo's. The hidden venom in his voice only served to confuse me further.  
  
"'Difficult' springs to mind," Wufei said through clenched teeth.  
  
"If I'm being difficult, what are you being?" Duo turned a page in his own book, though I highly doubt he had actually read it.  
  
"I am being reasonable, a word which does not apply to you." He shifted his book in his lap. I wondered how much he had actually read in the past few hours.  
  
"I'm plenty reasonable," Duo said. He pulled the blanket settled around his body a little tighter around his knees. "You're the one being a dick about the whole thing."  
  
Wufei snorted. "Oh, that's mature. I'm sure your Maxwell and crew would all be proud to hear that kind of language coming from you."  
  
Duo tensed, and the room felt suddenly colder to me. I wished I had a blanket, though I knew the temperature change was solely in my head. "Low blow," Duo whispered after a moment. Wufei's breath caught in his throat, and, for a moment, he looked abashed. Then, "But I think they'd agree with me. As would Meiran."  
  
"Hell!" Wufei was no longer pretending to be absorbed in his text, letting it instead fall off his lap to fall, open, pages bending, onto the floor beside the rug and perilously close to the fire. "Grow up, Maxwell! We can't live in perfect times, so just learn to live with disappointment."  
  
"I am not going to just sit here and--" Duo finally looked up from his book, eyes blazing more fiercely than the rather subdued fire in the slate-and-oak-paneled fireplace, to look at me. I gave him not an inch, staring straight back at him, and he turned his look to Wufei. There was a pointed pause.  
  
"Well, then," Wufei said stiffly. "Let's go upstairs and talk." There was cold iron in his voice.  
  
"Let's." Duo's tone matched Wufei's perfectly, down to the stiffness. Strangely enough, they did not seem to notice, even though it surely sounded as if he was mocking Wufei.  
  
They left stiffly, Wufei following Duo out of the room. They kept carefully three paces apart, even as they continued silently through the house. Over the distant strains of the violin and piano duet down the hall, I could hear the staircase creak as my other teammates trudged up towards their rooms.  
  
And then, I heard no more of their heated--or, was it chilling?--discussion. I allowed myself, instead, to let go of the disturbing encounter, and proceeded to play Tetris until I could no longer stand to lose. There is something hypnotic about Tetris: watching those arrangements of the four blocks fall, and maneuvering them around the debris of failed attempts to score. I played until I could no longer stand it, then shut down my computer and banked the fire.  
  
Quatre and Trowa were still practicing down the hall as I climbed the wide circular stairs. The finished wood made little noise under my feet; I could not walk silent in this house, as only Trowa--and Duo, when he forgot his fear of damaging the expensive parts of the house--could, but I found I worried less about stealth than I had during the war.  
  
Our rooms were aligned all in one hall, with my bedroom closest to the stairs. Duo's was next to mine, followed by Wufei's chamber. Trowa and Quatre had rooms across the hall. Our side of the hall had windows facing the sprawling backyard. As I stood in my room, the lights off and the large, yellow moon shining through the window, visions of the Tetris shapes fell before me every time I closed my eyes. I stared at my bed, watching as the light of the moon hit it and cast elongated shadows on the floor.  
  
Wufei's and Duo's conversation from before disturbed me. Two companions, friends, purposefully picking out words designed only to wound each other. Were we so starved for war, so hungry for blood that we had resorted to killing our own? I had often wished the others and their noise and messy emotions gone from my sterile existence, though I have retracted my wishes at later intervals; this battle between my comrades insinuated perhaps I might be closer to--something sinister in nature than I thought.  
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
The moon was low on the horizon. I have always noticed that the moon is largest when it nearly touches the tips of the distant trees--a mere trick of perception, perhaps, but one that never failed to entrance me. I must seem silly, being a warrior entranced with the moon, but I tell you it is so. With a woolen blanket in hand, I opened the french windows and swung from the small balcony to the roof above my room, a place I often sat to better watch the moon. Odd that the larger the moon is, the more yellow it becomes.  
  
I began my moon-gazing habits shortly after the fall of White Fang, while the earth and colonies were still celebrating the end of fighting and death--right after the signing of the first peace treaty. The moon seemed as large as my head, touching the edge of the horizon at the very tip of it's sphere. It was not yellow, that first time, but a dark, bloody red. It seemed to stain the sky. I stared at the moon, watching as it rose in the night, paling to yellow, and finally silvery-white. Perhaps it was a omen for the future: the cleansing of humanity. I am but a distant and dull observer, though, and have no motivation to hypothesize as to what it might mean.  
  
When I first ventured onto the roof, I had not realized the door to Duo's small balcony was open, and after a moment I could hear Wufei's voice sarcastically informing Duo of his ignorance. I shuddered inwardly; their fight still raged on?  
  
"Wu, just shut up and listen!" Duo finally interrupted. Wufei fell silent, and a moment passed. Evidently, now that Duo had his attention, the American was at a loss for words. "It's been years." His voice was so quiet I nearly lost the words to the wind. "We need to let go."  
  
"Fine." Wufei's voice was clipped. "I'll leave, then."  
  
"You're still afraid of her," Duo said, "after all these years! She's dead, Wufei. She's not Shenlong. She's a person, and she's dead." His voice grew gentle again, "If she loved you, she wouldn't have wanted you like this."  
  
"Like what?" Wufei asked.  
  
"So angry."  
  
"You're one to talk!" Wufei snarled.  
  
"Yeah, that's right, Wu. I'm angry, too. Damn it, I just want--I just want to let go." Duo sounded distressed. I held the moon in my gaze; she was a comforting presence. I did not wish to be privy to this conversation, this facet of my friends' lives, but I sat on the roof just the same, unable to turn away. The shingles were gritty and hard, and the wind had a cruel bite to it: a promise winter was soon to keep. I do not know why I did not simply jump back to my balcony and re-enter my warm, sheltered, quiet room; heaven knows I was perfectly capable of leaving this scene un-witnessed. I stayed, though. Perhaps I was keeping the moon company. I think I was waiting for it to turn red.  
  
"So," Wufei said in the pause. He sounded calm and hurt, not his usual self. "Is this it?"  
  
"'It'?" Duo echoed in a similar tone. "Wufei, I love you."  
  
Wufei was silent.  
  
"God." Duo sounded pained and lost; I had to strain to hear his speak over the chirping of the crickets. Odd that I had not noticed them earlier. "I didn't mean to tell you--like that. I was just... I wanted... If you want to leave, I can't stop you, but I... you... I can't just let you... without saying... I wanted to make it romantic... food, candles, some sort of... and I thought, if we could just finally leave the war behind us, stop dwelling on our failures... all that carnage... I thought, maybe if we could just get by all that--  
  
He cut off abruptly. I wondered why he had stopped speaking. The moon and I stared at each other, and I began to become concerned. The silence grew, and my gaze finally fell from the sky to the french windows next door. Through the open space, through the gauzy curtains fluttering in the wind, I could see Wufei and Duo standing next to Duo's bed. They were pressed up against each other, tightly, and Wufei's hands were on Duo's neck and back. I feared for a second they were fighting in earnest before I discovered the true reason for their proximity, and the tension in their necks, arms, and backs.  
  
They were kissing.  
  
It was not a chaste kiss, nor a brutal one. It was not slow, but neither was it fast. My knowledge of kissing is limited to movies and the biting caresses I have given Relena, so I cannot adequately describe their embrace. It seemed--earnest, perhaps is the best word. Hopeful. Pleading.  
  
I say this all calmly, perhaps to belie my shock as two of my long-time comrades kissed like old lovers. They touched each other with a familiarity that spoke of time and caring--even I, stupid as I was in the ways of romance, could see that this relationship, this kiss, was not a new development. I must have started, for my foot kicked a large stick free from the roof, and I tensed. It clattered as it fell, bouncing off both the gutter and the railing on the balcony, and I stared at my friends, expecting them at any moment to turn around and acknowledge my presence and--and what? Laugh? Throw things? Curse my name? Reveal the joke they were playing on me?  
  
I did not even realize I was holding my breath until it came out in a whoosh as they ignored the clangs my stick caused. They separated slowly, and laid their heads on each others' shoulders. Duo's hand moved up from Wufei's neck and gently removed the tie that kept Wufei's hair in such tight rein. With his hair down, Wufei looked no less like a man than before; indeed, who could mistake either for anything but a man with their solid builds?  
  
Somehow, impossibly, I heard Wufei whisper, "Wo ai ni."  
  
I know little enough Chinese, but that phrase is simple enough to even me:  
  
I love you. And not in a strictly brotherly fashion, either.  
  
Duo made a small noise and tightened his grip on Wufei, kissing him. They continued to kiss, hands shifting over each other's bodies. I watched as their shirts came off, and then their pants. I could not look away as Wufei lowered Duo to the bed. I had never before seen two men have sex, and I have not witnessed it since then. Wufei's back was to me, hiding the gentle emotions I had earlier seen on his face. I was glad to finally be sheltered from his weakness; his commitment to Duo, to this act, to (of all things!) love drove a spear of confusion through me. The light of the moon--already bleaching away the previous yellow--illuminated their act, and as the curtains shifted again in the breeze, I saw clearly the moment when Wufei lowered himself onto Duo's erection.  
  
I was uncomfortable watching, but I sat there like a pervert, watching their intimacy. If I had not feared being caught witnessing this sacred act, I would have fled to the sanctity of my own room, ignored the act. Even when I looked away, back at the moon, I could hear their breathy moans and whispered cries. I could hear as they murmured to each other, as Wufei threw his head back and gritted his teeth against the pain, or pleasure, or whatever he got out of the act. I felt ill.  
  
My attention was drawn back to the two men I called friends as Wufei's breathing became even more ragged and loud than before. I was sure Quatre and Trowa could hear them, that they bore witness to this event as I did. Duo was sitting, legs spread, with Wufei in his lap, Wufei's strong legs wrapped around his waist. They were kissing again; Duo's hands were splayed on Wufei's back, caressing the rippling muscles. Wufei tensed and then sagged, suddenly, recovering enough after a moment to keep moving against the still-undulating Duo. Duo finally moaned, low and soft, "Wufei," and they fell down to the bed.  
  
I scrabbled off the roof as silently as I could as they petted and stroked each other's naked flesh. My limbs were stiff from the cold, and responded sluggishly to my commands. I shut the french doors tightly and bolted them against the wind, closing the curtains half-way as well.  
  
After I donned my pajamas, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, watching the shadows of the curtains and my lamp cast by the full moon. Even though I was watching the shadows, all I could see was the look of wonder on Duo's face as he collapsed against his lover, and before my eyes another four-block piece fell from the top of the rectangle to perfectly complete a solid four rows. Tetris. Extra points.  
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
Quatre and Trowa found out about *it* a year after it happened. It was during a mission that headed only towards extraordinarily difficult, of course, and neither of them took it particularly well at first.  
  
Wufei was seated at his computer, reviewing the file on the serial killer we sought. It was a gruesome case involving children, and that is all I care to remember of the job itself: in the eyes of every slaughtered child I saw the face of a girl with a puppy and a flower.  
  
But Wufei was at his computer. His tie was slightly askew, and a strand of hair fell to the corner of his eye, though he did not push it aside. Duo came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder, a comforting gesture no one thought anything of. They seemed but close friends to most, though I, with my firm knowledge of one intimate night and extrapolated knowledge of many, many others, blamed Quatre and Trowa for their own blindness. They did not officially room together, but I know they rarely spent a night apart.  
  
We were nearing the end of our usefulness to Une--not through any failure of our own, but because of our success. I was already ready to revert to Emergency status, having found satisfactory work watching Relena, and Quatre had his ever-growing Winner Corporation to attend to. Duo and Wufei were staying on, if only to give Une hell, and Trowa took on a janitorial position at the local zoo, cleaning out the animal cages. It sounded like horrible work, but he seemed to like it enough.  
  
But as Duo stood there, silently supporting Wufei, Wufei tipped his head up to meet Duo's gaze. They smiled, fleetingly, and Duo brushed their lips together. It was brief and passionless, but everyone in the office must have seen the warm caress, for the buzz of phones, typing, and chatter died quickly before surging back to life. Only Quatre and Trowa seemed overly surprised.  
  
Their surprise in turn surprised me. How could they have missed it? Quatre, the master of reading people, had neglected to examine his closest friends? Trowa, the silent observer, had been silently unobservant? How stupid of them, I always thought, to assume that, just because *they* were friends, no one else's relationship had gone further. How pathetic, to deny oneself insight into one's companions through purposeful blindness.   
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
It happened one night on another mission turned sour. Broadcast as a simple smuggling case, I ignored the summons in favor of Relena's shining speeches and political glory. It should have been easy--would have been, too, if the cargo had only been delivered in a reliable boat. ...that is another incident that I do not care to speak of.  
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
Every time I say it, I wish it a lie. It is hard to be a god in one's own time, to be seen as the sole savior of the people. It is difficult to live in the present when you feel invincible, but know yourself only a few steps from putting a gun in your mouth.  
  
I have never lived for myself. I live for the mission, for the thrill of completing the plans of others. Quatre was like me; he thrived on making plans for others to execute, for strategizing. He was vicious during chess and company politics, and watching him play was rather like watching him slip back into the Zero System. After the first few times, I never watched him anymore. I left when he played chess, and behaved similarly whenever I was alone in a room with Wufei and Duo.  
  
Trowa lived to be a pawn in Quatre's game. He is like me: life, for us, is a series of missions to take and complete. He never rejected the dirty work, and he sought validation in his victory record.  
  
Duo and Wufei are a separate matter. They did not live for the completion, nor the thrill of the hunt, nor the glory of victory. When I think of them, I remember that night as I sat on the roof, watching as Wufei eased himself down on Duo, and I feel sick. With every passing day, that night feels more and more like a violation. I was never meant to see that.  
  
The rest of the Gundam pilots are dead.  
  
Sometimes, late at night, I watch the moon in the sky. It has been so long since I saw anything but a white, tiny moon that I fear the soft, haunting yellow of the past is forever gone. There is no thrill for life in me, and though Relena does what she can to fill the emptiness, all I see when I imagine happiness is the exhausted glow on Duo's face as he and Wufei lay, sated, on their bed. 


End file.
